In the early days of logging in the forests of the Pacific Northwest logged-over stump land could be purchased very cheap - if you had the money to buy. Loggers/part-time farmers were usually the purchasers as it put them close to their work and supplemented their seasonal logger's income. This early morning scene shows a logger near Mount Baker, in northern Washington, about to cross a stile to meet the company "crummy" to take him to work.
Early-day immigrants to Washington and Oregon would complain about the huge trees growing so abundantly in the fertile western valleys and that such hard work was required to clear the land for farming. Though many of the fertile valleys remain for the seed, grain, and livestock farmers, large acreages in the hills and mountains have returned to their natural crop - trees.